@l.leon, I agree with @jimnm that the squirrels are stressed and they need some stress relief. The Bantam giving them a nice head “massage” will relieve lots of that mental stress building up in the squirrels brain. Maybe too, the squirrels eyes will be opened to see what pain their stress is causing you.
Same thing here. Last year they were nipping off the green pecans off of my trees. Why, I have no idea, but it ruined any chances of getting pecans that year. I whipped out the Dian 45 and dropped 4. Got serious this year, bought a Hatsan Factor and then upgraded to a FX Maverick. Count is somewhere north of 15 this year...and oddly enough, trees that have never had pecans now suddenly have pecans.